Over 2 years of ‘deadly’ delays for 999 service

PATIENTS are ‘dying needlessly’ as unprecedented pressure on the NHS has led to critically ill patients waiting too long for an ambulance.

Ambulances have not met their targets for responding to even the most serious and life-threatening call-outs for two and a half years, new figures show.

A Scottish Ambulance Service (SAS) report warns of ‘exceptional and sustained pressure’ due to soaring demand, patients needing more complex care, staff shortages and delays outside hospitals.

One whistleblower said patients were dying as overwhelming system-wide pressure was compromising frontline care.

And Scottish Conservative health spokesman Dr Sandesh Gulhane said: ‘Unacceptably long ambulance waiting times is one of the most serious indicators of the extent of the crisis in Scotland’s NHS.

‘As with the delays we are seeing in our A&E wards, they lead, tragically, to avoidable loss of lives.’

The latest SAS performance report shows that while the service aims to get ambulances to critically ill patients within a median time of six minutes and 20 seconds, the target was last met in October 2019. In February, the median time was seven minutes and 47 seconds.

Actions to cut delays include 540 extra frontline staff, new ambulance stations and

‘They sat there four hours at the local A&E and he died’

automatic dispatch of crews in response to trigger words during an emergency call.

The report said hospital turnaround times remain ‘of significant concern’ but individual sites were producing new action plans to speed things up.

The NHS has huge backlogs for elective surgery and record waits at emergency departments and has implemented a ‘redesign of urgent care’ to try to ensure A&E is accessed only by those who really need it.

The paramedic whistleblower, based in central Scotland, said patients were dying because of system-wide pressures including lack of capacity in community care and hospital bed shortages.

They said: ‘I know people have died. One colleague attended an older man who collapsed with a heart attack. My colleague was told not to take him to the hospital with specialist care but the local A&E. They sat there four hours and he died.

‘I had a stroke patient and when we arrived at hospital they said to leave the patient in the reception waiting area. I wasn’t happy. A manager said they’d sort it but the patient collapsed and woke up in the waiting area.

‘The NHS is under such strain trying to get the backlog done and everybody’s got used to going to A&E or phoning an ambulance instead of the GP.

‘The choke as you go through that hospital door is having a catastrophic effect on patient care. I see dramas unfolding left, right and centre and it’s like an iceberg. What I see is just the tip... what’s happening within a hospital where there’s not enough nurses?’

Meanwhile Jamie McNamee, Unite’s SAS convener, said ‘the dangerous and sometimes fatal length of time ambulances are waiting outside A&E units has serious implications for the physical and mental wellbeing of both patients and ambulance crew’.

He said paramedics were exhausted and habitually worked beyond their contracted hours in order to care for patients.

An SAS spokesman said the ‘median response times for our most critically ill patients was just over seven minutes in April’, adding: ‘Despite Covid-19 pressures, we have recorded our highest ever rates of survival for our most critically unwell patients, including those suffering from cardiac arrest. Our aim is to reduce response times even further.’